Computing architectures that operate efficiently and that can process data quickly are generally preferred over their counterparts. The speed at which these computing architectures process data may be limited by a number of factors that include the design of the architecture, operating conditions, quality of utilized components, and the protocols, logic, and methodologies employed by the computer architecture when processing data. Latencies in the communication of data across components arising from data communications architectures and protocols of a computing architecture may also impact the speed at which data may be processed.
A number of data communications architectures are currently employed to communicate data between cooperating components of a computer architecture (e.g. computer processors within a computing environment's processing unit or between a computer processor and peripheral component such as a data storage drive). For example, IDE/ATA (Integrated Drive Electronics/Advanced Technology Attachment) and SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) are both common interfaces to hard drives (as well as some other devices, such as CD-ROM and DVD drives), and there are several flavors of each. Other data communications architectures include PCI (Peripheral Components Interconnect), AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port), USB (Universal Serial Bus), serial data communications ports, and parallel data communications ports.
Although each of the above data communications architectures are effective in transmitting data between cooperating components, each of these architectures have drawbacks and performance limitations. Specifically, such data communication architectures are not designed to handle voluminous amounts of data communications, which are communicated at high clock frequencies (e.g. several Giga Hertz). Additionally, the PCI, IDE, and SCSI data communication architectures generally require overhead processing calculations when communicating data that impacts overall data communications speed. Stated differently, in addition to the desired data being communicated additional overhead processing data must be communicated. As such, less overall data is processed during each clock cycle.
Responsive to the need for higher bandwidth data communications architectures, the SERDES (serializer/deserializer) data communications architecture was developed. SERDES operates to encode and decode data according to a predefined scheme (e.g. eight-bit/ten-bit-8b10b encoding). The encoded data is communicated over one or more communication channels from the serializer to a corresponding deserializer for decoding. The SERDES data communication architecture has been shown to increase data communications bandwidth between cooperating components. In this context, SERDES data communication architectures are deployed as data buses operating to carry data between cooperating components.